


The Adviser's Best Plan

by Merfilly



Category: Emperor's New Groove (2000)
Genre: Evil Plans, Gen, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-17
Updated: 2018-09-17
Packaged: 2019-07-13 12:10:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,050
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16017644
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Merfilly/pseuds/Merfilly
Summary: Yzma has served the Empire a long long long long time. And now she has a plan to rule it.





	The Adviser's Best Plan

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Rosencrantz](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rosencrantz/gifts).



> Dear Recipient, I hope this meets your tastes. I couldn't _quite_ get to fairy godmother, but the idea of Yzma and Kuzco's childhood stuck with me.

When Manco produced an heir to the kingdom, Yzma was not exactly the most pleased by the event. She had been adviser to him, his father, and his grandfather, always in hopes of attaining the throne. Yet, each generation, in the last gasp of their virility, they had managed to produce heirs. Such a thing had been frustrating, but a person only gingerly thwarted the Sons of the Sun God.

"Yzma! My most faithful and loyal servant!" Manco held the swaddled infant up to her face, so that one set of wrinkled, weary eyes stared into a blobby screaming thing's eyes. "I pronounce to you, this is Kuzco, and YOU! My faithful adviser! YOU will be the one to see him to manhood, to guard over him, and see him safely into the rule of the empire!"

Never before had one of the rulers done such, and Yzma had to wonder at Manco's sanity. He had, without thought, just given her **rights** over the child.

Maybe, just maybe, that would be enough to dilute the effects of divinity if she set about manipulating events to her own wishes.

The smile she gave the ruler had nothing to do with his joy, and everything to do with her ambition.

"Why, this is such a delightful turn of events!" she declared, before going off to plot on how best to use this new power.

`~`~`~`~`

Outright death was not something she wanted to court, not yet, not until she had her full power around her. 

So she made herself invest her _time_ and _energy_ in the boy. Kuzco, she decided, would have all he needed, all he wanted, and — most importantly to her plans — always be consumed by a wish for even _more_!

Manco made this even easier by dying before the child was ten.

"Don't you want _that_ llama? This one seems dull," was whispered in an ear until Kuzco demanded the family pet of another noble.

"Oh, they gave you this shoddy sculpture?" Yzma feigned disappointment. "You should make them give you the really good one." And Kuzco went to pick the one he liked best, never mind that it had been designed for the gods themselves.

On and on, Yzma guided Kuzco down the path of self-absorbed wish fulfillment, riling up the people, little by little.

She even gave him an entertainer, someone who sang day and night to Kuzco of just how good and wonderful he was. The higher the ego, the greater the revolution!

If she could but coax him into a towering blasphemy, the people would revolt. And then she would step in.

`~`~`~`~`

"Don't you think, Yzma, that I should have a place to get away from it all?"

With that, Yzma found the perfect thing to push Kuzco a little further down the path. She fed his dreams of a resort, of a place just for him. At thirteen, he was getting dangerously close to being man enough to remember he was the Emperor in fact, not just name.

She did not want him to come to that conclusion until he was so spoiled, so ripe for a fall, that her power was assured.

"I think you should find the perfect place to put it. Why don't you tour the Empire, and choose the right mountain for your, ehhh, what did you call it?"

"Kuzcotopia!" the boy said, and he began to go on and on and on about his pet project. Yzma mostly tuned him out, as she delighted in this latest scheme. If he traveled, he might come to harm. Or, at the very least, he could annoy the peasants instead of her for a change!

`~`~`~`~`

The plan had backfired.

Kuzco made a tour of just one village, decided traveling was not for him, and came home with Ideas.

Ideas, Yzma noted, that included him ruling.

The throne was off-limits to her. He threw a fit if she sat on it, as she had through the years of bringing him up into a properly spoiled brat of an heir to the Empire.

"I am the Emperor. You are the adviser. Natch?"

Yzma forced a gritty smile. "Natch, my dear Kuzco."

He side-eyed her, and then gave a dismissal.

"Where'd you send the latest model off to? I think I have a job for him."

Yzma looked at the boy for a long moment before remembering that he had stopped learning the names of her assistants when he was four. Then again, they never lasted _that_ long, after all.

"Jock, sire? You wish him to do something for you?"

"Yeah, send the jock my way, next time you let him out of your," and Kuzco did this thing with the first two fingers of both hands in the air, "secret laboratory."

"As you wish."

`~`~`~`~`

Jock got to tour the Empire. Yzma washed her hands of him, went through three more young men in the time he was gone, and wound up with one that had a higher muscle to brain ratio than the past ten combined.

Kronk was perfect, though, for the fruition of her plans.

Jock reported back with the name of a spire that would be perfect for Kuzcotopia, and Yzma chortled in delight as the peasant in charge of overseeing the village there was summoned. The peasants had to revolt, if Kuzco just up and annexed the entire mountain, displacing them.

Only, the peasant in charge, some nameless nobody with a severe lack of spine, failed to get a revolt organized. Yzma's spy on that meeting reported to her before Kuzco himself put in an appearance. She dismissed the spy, and kept holding court, just like usual.

And then Kuzco came in, before she had had time to finish choosing what to do in his name to really inspire a revolt.

While she was on the throne.

Sixteen was apparently the number of years that Kuzco could handle being under her thumb. When he fired her, she threw all the appropriate emotions at him, and inwardly rejoiced.

He had abrogated the contract that his father had placed on her, to guard and raise him! Now, now she was willing to entertain the idea of outright murder!

"COME, KRONK!" she bellowed, plans upon plans spinning in her mind already.

Soon, she would EMPRESS!

**Author's Note:**

> This is set SOLELY against the first movie, and maybe be contradicted by later materials.


End file.
